Friday, October 11, 2024

On Turning 75: From 2021


How It Happens

 The sky said I am watching
 to see what you
 can make out of nothing
 I was looking up and I said
 I thought you 
were supposed to be doing that
 the sky said Many
 are clinging to that 
I am giving you a chance
 I was looking up and I said
 I am the only chance I have 
then the sky did not answer
 and here we are 
with our names for the days
 the vast days that do not listen to us

W. S. Merwin

 “In Blake, we recover our original state, not by returning to it, but by re-creating it. The act of creation is not producing something out of nothing, but the act of setting free what we already possess.” --Northrup Frye

Photo: Trinidad Head June 30, 2021

This is all I posted for my 75th birthday, curious choice for one of the Big Ones--three-quarters of a century.  On the day I was feeling somewhat wounded because no one but my partner contacted me.  I got cards and a call on subsequent days, but that day felt pretty empty.  Had my life come to nothing?  Nothing is the key word in both the Merwin poem and the Frye quote.  

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